You know that one about lies, damned lies and statistics? Well City’s current run of five consecutive clean sheets in the league is the latter. And a fine one at that.
The contrast with last year’s “score lots, concede lots as well” couldn’t be sharper: the last five league games have earned City 11 points, and they have scored just three goals.
Strange times, indeed.
Angus Gunn has played just 10 senior club games in his career, but is now in the club history books – a stunning achievement for the Gunn family connection. The 21-year-old hasn’t been beaten for 468 minutes, since Shaun Hutchinson scored past him in the 4-0 defeat at Millwall – an afternoon which is fast becoming regarded as a turning point in City’s season.
However, Angus – and City, to be fair – have a way to go to break some of the stunning clean sheet records out there.
Manchester United’s Edwin Van Der Sar went 1,311 minutes without conceding in the 2009 Premier League season, while former Liverpool and England keeper Ray Clemence had 360 clean sheets in his club career.
In 2005-06 Arsenal went 995 minutes without conceding.
As far as Football League records are concerned, the record for number of games without conceding a goal is held by Millwall (1925-6), York City (1973-74) and Reading (1978-79) with 11. Charlton had 10 in a row in 1997-98.
Port Vale have kept the most clean sheets in a single Football League season, with 30 in 1953-54. Most recently, in 2011-12, Swindon kept 26 clean sheets in their League Two campaign.
As far as this season is concerned, City, Leeds and Alex Neil’s Preston have kept clean sheets in six out of their 10 games – at the other end of that particular stats table, Sunderland have kept a big fat zero.
The win at Middlesbrough was their first on Teeside in 29 years and their first clean sheet there in 41.
So, it’s time to look ahead: this weekend the Canaries travel to Reading, who have had one clean sheet in nine outings (only Sunderland have fared worse), score in two out of every three games (six out of nine this season), but have only eight goals to their name.
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